Freeport’s NJROTC shooters among best in nation

FREEPORT — Jaleel Canada and Ian Hollins never picked up a rifle before high school.

Flash forward four years and Canada is one of less than a 1,000 high schoolers in U.S. history to earn the designation distinguished shooter.

And Hollins isn’t far behind; he has already compiled 23 of the 30 competition points needed.

And those aren’t even two of a kind. In October, Canada became the first member of Freeport High School’s Navy Junior ROTC program to earn the distinguished shooter designation. Gabe Palermo reached it last week.

“There are only 671 distinguished shooters in the history of junior shooting,” said rifle team coach Michael Dechy, a retired Marine sergeant major. “And in the history of all shooting since 1906, there are only 13,000 (at any level).

“And we’ve got two in one year.”

It could even swell to four. Dechy, a former Marine sniper, thinks Dakota Carter also has a shot.

That’s four of Freeport’s five-man (and girl) lineup. No wonder the Freeport team is now No. 5 in the nation.

Last week, the Pretzels finished second out of 46 teams in the sporter division (where the air rifles must cost $550 or less) of the Gary Anderson Invitational at Camp Perry in Port Clinton, Ohio. Canada was the individual meet champion with a school-record score of 557 (out of 600). Palermo took third with a 548.

Freeport has an even bigger meet Saturday, back at Camp Perry for the 43-school, nine-state Area 3 Championships. Dechy calls that “our conference.”

Pretzel dreams now extend far past conference. They were ninth at nationals last summer in Alabama and return four of their five team members this year.

“This is my best team,” Dechy said. “We only started the program five years ago. We went from kids barely being able to shoot to where we are now. One kid shot a 45 (out of 300) at first; that was for all three positions. We’re averaging in the 270s now.

“Our kids didn’t know what they were doing in the beginning, but we quickly got better.”

The shooters train 11 months a year.

“This isn’t like football, where there is a season, or basketball, where there is a season,” Dechy said. “This is a year-round sport.”

Dechy makes it harder on his shooters by making people shoot faster. In competition, they have 20 minutes for 20 shots. But he has drills where they are given only 30 seconds per shot. Or an unspecified time in his music drills.

“When I change the music, they have to shoot another shot,” he said. “It’s like musical chairs; they never know when the music is going to stop, so they have to focus on their fundamentals.”

“The drills help you focus,” Palermo agreed. “You know you don’t have much time before you take that shot.”

The rifle team is just one of six teams the Freeport NJROTC fields in various competitions.

“All of these kids are also on the drill team and orienteering team,” Dechy said.

Or more. Canada, for instance, competes on five of the six teams that the Pretzels offer. The other three teams are: academic, color guard and athletics.

The Pretzels hope to bring home the Area 3 title this weekend, but the shooters have even bigger goals in mind down the line.

“Four years ago, we weren’t even close to being a national team,” Canada said. “But as time progressed, we got better and better. We’ve really come far.”

“We’ve come a long way,” Palermo said, “but we can go even farther.”

“This,” Canada said, “is just the beginning of what we’re about to bring. We can go a lot further than ninth in nationals. This year we’re looking at first, second or third at nationals.”